Filed under: Education
“In considering how to conduct the schooling of our young, adults have two problems to solve. One is an engineering problem; the other, a metaphysical one. The engineering problem, as all such problems are, is essentially technical. It is the problem of the means by which the young will become learned. It addresses the issues of where and when things will be done, and, of course, how learning is supposed to occur. The problem is not a simple one, and any self-respecting book on schooling must offer some solutions to it.
But it is important to keep in mind that the engineering of learning is very often puffed up, assigned an importance it does not deserve. As an old saying goes, ‘There are one and twenty ways to sing tribal lays, and all of them are correct.’ So it is with learning…But to become a different person because of something you have learned–to appropriate an insight, a concept, a vision, so that your world is altered–that is a different matter. For that to happen, you need a reason. And this is the metaphysical problem I speak of.”
So says Neil Postman on the opening pages of his book, The End of Education: Redefining the Value of School. Postman argues for a pluralism that adopts an overarching “narrative” that incorporates all other narratives into it. This “narrative” he calls a god. We are to serve this god by forming our educational goals and unifying the curriculum around his/hers/its values (more…)
